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6o!ti in §oJjtrnuunt. 


A SERMON: 


PREACHED ON THE 


DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, 


January 4, 1861, 


IN THE CHUECH OF THE HOLY TEINITY; rHILADELPHIA. 


BY 

ALEXANDER II. YINTON, 

RECTOR. 


PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 




PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL BOOK SOCIETY 

I N 

PHILADELPHIA: 

1224 CHESTNUT STREET. 


1861 . 





ET^Ao 

•S' 


COLLINS, PKINTER, 
705 Jayne Street. 


SEEM ON. 


“ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there 

IS NO POWER BUT OF GrOD. ThE POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED OF 

God.”—K omans xiii. 1. 

This chapter contains a statement of the politics 
of St. Paul, and the opening verse indicates their 
fundamental principle. 

That principle is, that civil government is a Di¬ 
vine institution. Valuable at all times as a constant 
truth, it is especially important now when we feel 
it to be a practical truth. We are summoned to¬ 
gether to deprecate a threatened calamity. The 
nation is summoned, for the calamity is national. 
The emergency ];ias produced striking exhibitions 
of strength and of weakness, of wisdom and of 
folly. But to this hour the strength has accom¬ 
plished no more than the weakness, and the wisdom 
has proved itself no more successful than folly. In 
this crisis of imbecility our chief magistrate asks 
us to pray. 

It is well for us to pray to the God of nations, if 



4 


it were only to recognize thereby a truth which our 
nation has seemed sometimes to be well-nigh forget¬ 
ting. Our sin has been that we have not acknow¬ 
ledged his sovereignty when the acknowledgment 
would have rebuked us. May it be reckoned as our 
repentance that we invoke His Almightiness at last 
when His power alone can save us. 

There are calamities which are from their nature 
beyond human reach to cause or cure. The pesti¬ 
lence, the famine, the earthquake, come forth from 
the secrets of Nature, and give no account of them¬ 
selves to our inquisitive science, and so we call them 
Providential evils. The universal wail shows that 
human skill has proved itself powerless, and then 
we look above and seem to see the omnipotent right 
arm just receding among the clouds that envelop 
the throne of God. But although in social and po¬ 
litical calamities we can trace each trouble to its 
source, and unravel the web of cause and effect, yet 
it is not less rational to recognize., that sovereignty 
which is none the less sovereign, because we can de¬ 
fine its working. 

While to-day we sit apart from our business, 
gazing face to face upon the coming trial, let me ask 
you to reflect upon the Divine authority of civil 
government, and upon some of the causes which 
have led us habitually to forget it. Our national 


5 


unity is shaken and may be soon shattered. Our 
polity rocks to and fro, as if an earthquake were 
beneath us. Men and communities resist the au¬ 
thority of government as if it were right and glori¬ 
ous to do so. The period has developed a pride and 
self-will that have amazed us, and we ask how it has 
come to pass. In attempting to answer how, if I 
should answer in a sentence, I would say it comes to 
pass because the people have forgotten the great 
truth that government is divine; that “the powers 
that be are ordained of God.” But I would rather 
undertake to show the causes of this very forgetful¬ 
ness, and how it results from the necessity of cause 
and effect that the thick coming peril is upon us to¬ 
day : 1st, I would lay the prime cause back in the 
constitution of the American character. Of that 
character the surpassing trait is energy. 

It is not that we are a more thoughtful people 
than others—nor indeed so much so as some others. 
Mind is active, but it is excursive; too active to be 
sober and safe; as quick to hug a fanatical foolery 
as to grasp a solid truth; too impatient to be wise. 
The nature of this energy, this inworking (for so it 
means) is intensity^ and its manifestation is exaggera¬ 
tion. 

In thought, in morals, in politics, in practical life, 
the American character exaggerates. American 


6 


orations sometimes drive the powers of rhetoric and 
of fancy to the verge of sense, and beyond. Ameri¬ 
can wit is thought, pushed to the degree of absurd¬ 
ity. Our theorists are men of one idea, which to 
them is as large as the round world, and they that 
dwell therein. Nay, more than this. The one 
idea of the American is always the centre of a sys¬ 
tem, around which all other ideas revolve. If the 
idea be anti-slavery, then slavery is the colossal curse 
and sin that dwarfs all others. If it be pro-slavery, 
then slavery is that sweet. Divine benediction upon 
society that is destined to inaugurate a new Para¬ 
dise. Our practical men enterprise great things, 
achieve splendid successes, and precipitate no less 
splendid failures. Our public spirited men make 
vast endowments; our villains perpetrate the most 
stupendous frauds. This inworking impulse is alike 
restless under delay and under toil. The countless 
inventions of the Patent Office, for labor-saving, 
demonstrate the American predominance of brain 
over muscle, and his intense impatience of toil. 

All these, the merits and the faults, the successes 
and the failures, work the one and self-same qua¬ 
lity, which we call energy, the restlessness of the 
nervous system. And this impulse from within is 
mated by the freedom without, and both together 
combine to form the American character. I know 


7 


not whether the freedom solicited forth the energy, 
or the energy impelled the freedom; which is 
mother, and which is child; or whether both be 
married together as husband and wife. But I know 
that when they go abroad upon the world to seek 
their fortune hand in hand, the energy unrepressed 
and the freedom unbridled, he must be a bold pro¬ 
phet to insure the safe result of any enterprise upon 
which they may jointly enter. Since, in the 
nature of things, the energy could never repress it¬ 
self, nor the freedom be self-curtailed, not only must 
the progress be violent and the resultant full of 
havoc, but the same inherent causes wmuld prevent 
wisdom proceeding from the woe. 

Sanguine, eager, forth-putting, wilful, even if 
sagacious, such is our national portrait. 

2dly. And now mark how these qualities have 
expressed themselves and been nurtured through 
our peculiar style of education. There are two 
chief methods of training the human character, the 
one a method of restraint, and the other a method 
of incitement. Historically, they might be desig¬ 
nated as the Spartan and the Athenian method. 
The Spartan education was exclusively a system of 
control. The Athenian one of development. A 
single glance demonstrates under which title our 
own system falls, and traces the Athenian likeness 


8 


in ns, throughout. We are a commercial people 
as well as they, restless, busy, and enterprising, 
fathoming all depths, measuring all distances, and 
testing, if not torturing, all the powers of nature 
and art. We plant a ladder at every post of honor. 
We widen the paths of social distinction. We 
open the arena of political competition to all comers, 
and confer the crown on the best wrestler. Our 
education lives by incitement, and its result is de¬ 
velopment. It tends eminently to exalt the indi¬ 
vidual^ and it results in a system of individualism. 

Now if human attributes were all and altogether 
virtuous; if man’s spiritual character had no worm 
of evil gnawing at its germ; if it were only neces¬ 
sary to impart warmth to powers and qualities whose 
natural growth is Heavenward, the system of incite¬ 
ment would be beyond question the safe and sure 
education; the education of Heaven and for Heaven. 
But if the fall of man be a fact of his history, and 
if his nature has received a bias and distortion from 
that shock; if his life is crowded with vicious incite¬ 
ments, and his own insurgent instincts of evil are 
developed at even an equal pace with his virtues; 
then he requires a training which shall not only 
nurture the tardy good, but fetter the swift sin of 
his nature. The radical need of his education would 
be that of restraint. 


9 


Without it the stimulated nature may develop 
into surpassing prow^ess, mental and physical; into 
tall independence and jealous self-respect. But if 
the educational system be exclusively stimulating, it 
strengthens the personal biases of each man into 
offensive singularities, insulates him from his fel¬ 
lows, unfits him for the accommodation of society, 
renders him less considerate of the common interest, 
less observant of law, wayward in his indulgences, 
inveterate in his self-will, and in every way a worse 
citizen. We may track this disastrous influence 
on many a page of our history, from the nursery, 
through the school-house and the college, up to the 
commonwealth; in the precocious self-will of the 
child, the insubordination of youth, and the want 
of reverence for authority in the people. Through 
how many generations these qualities must run, 
gathering force and aggravation, before they shall 
explode the corporate unity of the nation, I will not 
undertake to forecast. I humbly trust not now. 
We are praying against the dire experiment to-day. 
But let the future be wary and watchful for these 
consequences. Be it ours here and now to denote 
the causes, and hereafter, if it may be, to obviate 
them by the antagonistic principle of restraint, first 
upon the child, and so of consequence upon the 
man and the citizen. It is a cogent and wholesome 


10 


power. Out of it comes self-denial, the backbone 
of heroism, the fulcrum of our moral manhood. 
Out of it come the love of order and of law, filial 
reverence to authority, and that submission which 
Bishop Berkeley calls the cement of society. It 
curbs the salient propensities, strikes off offensive 
peculiarities, engenders the sympathy of a common 
life, advances the whole humanity even if it re¬ 
presses the individual man, creates a national unity, 
is triumphant against invasion, and equally proof 
against insurrection and treason. 

3dly. Let us pass now to consider what connection 
this character and this training may have had with 
our theory of political government. It has been 
remarked of the two great states of antiquity that 
the Homan education was a part of its government, 
and the Grecian government a part of its education. 
In this respect again we find a likeness between the 
Greek and the American. All our characteristics 
and circumstances, our history and our education 
combined to render it almost infallibly sure that our 
form of polity should be practically what it is— 
popular—instead of monarchical or aristocratic. 
But it is a very interesting and important question 
on what theory shall the government be based; or 
rather, for the real question lies one step farther 
back than this, on what principle shall the authority 


11 


of government be grounded. This radical question 
has created two schools of political philosophers. 
Up to the period of the Reformation the uniform 
sentiment of mankind had recognized the Divine 
authority of government. But when Luther hurled 
his iron gauntlet against the doors of the Vatican, 
challenging the supremacy of the Pope, the echo of 
that defiance proved as startling as if it were the 
fulmination of the Pope himself. It was the thun¬ 
der of the Vatican reversed. All Europe was 
alarmed, and the whole question of government and 
its authority began to be revised and sifted. There 
grew a Protestantism in the State as well as in the 
Church. Yet be it observed, the question turned 
mainly not upon the authority, but upon the forms 
and methods of government. Protestantism was 
not as yet so irreligious as to deny the Divine au¬ 
thority of human government. It only maintained 
that there were certain ultimate and supreme rights 
belonging to the governed. Some writers, however, 
denied these ultimate rights, and Hobbes and Sir 
Robert Filmer propounded a theory of pure abso¬ 
lutism, rejecting all forms of government but the 
monarchical, and boldly asserting “ the right divine 
of kings to govern wrong.” 

Against this system Mr. Locke reared his theory 
of the social contract. He maintained that govern- 


12 


ment was a matter of simple convention and agree¬ 
ment among all the people, and hence that rulers 
derived their authority solely from the people’s gift. 
We see at once that this theory leaves the authority 
of human government shorn of all its divinity. As 
the stream cannot rise higher than its fountain, the 
government might be as basely human as the people 
sometimes are. It became at once the theory of 
atheism, and with Eousseau for its great prophet it 
acted out in France its pure unmitigated mischief 
in the atrocities of the Eeign of Terror. This the¬ 
ory in its naked form was liable to severe objections. 
Historically it had no shadow of foundation. For 
from the time of Nimrod, who laid the first histo¬ 
rical empire in conquest, down to the days of Mr. 
Locke, there probably had never been a people who 
had come together by common consent and agreed 
to create a government. In strict logic its govern¬ 
ment was a mobocracy; its decrees were lynch law, 
and its normal condition was revolution. Neither 
was the theory any more defensible in practice; for 
in no instance of a social contract can we suppose 
that the persons covenanting will be more than one 
in five of the whole number of the people. 

The theory of the social contract, however, such 
as it is, with its grand religious defect, with its 
logical disabilities, with its practical self-contradic- 


13 


tion and its want of precedent and history, was no 
doubt the favorite theory of our Eevolution. It 
was adapted to the American character, and it fell 
in with our education. It was democratic and it 
was progressive. 

The fathers of the nation, however, did what 
they could to obviate its faults in every respect but 
in making the theory religious. To escape its 
mobocratic tendency, they required that the will of 
the people should be expressed in the forms of law. 
Nay, they erected a Constitution, which being the 
fruit of deliberation and forethought, uttering the 
solemn decree of the collective people, should be 
supreme over every other law, and save the nation 
from the mischief of mad majorities. But they did 
not even preface the Constitution with “ In the 
name of God, amen !” 

Here was the first, the flagrant, I trust it may 
not prove the fatal fault of a system of government 
otherwise the most admirable that was ever framed 
by human wisdom. 

All else they did to supply to the theory its 
missing element of authority. They hedged their 
government, if not with a divinity, yet with that 
authority which, in their day, was fashionably 
thought to embody the only Divinity in the world, 
the enlightened reason of the nation. 


14 


The theory of the social contract then, in our 
hands, has parted with some of its most dangerous 
liabilities. But is it safe after all'? Can it be per¬ 
petual '? Does it grasp the sentiment of loyalty in 
the human heart without which no government can 
long subsist*? For that sentiment is man’s political 
conscience, the principle of allegiance to the God in 
government. Sceptreless and badgeless, it sits on 
his soul as on a throne, and bends down his nature 
to its felt sovereignty. It is not a fear nor a phan¬ 
tom. It is no hallucination nor trick of the fancy. 
It is a spiritual instinct. Its action is vital. It has 
the position of the heart in man’s spiritual organ¬ 
ism. If you compress it, it beats painfully. If you 
give it play, it sends with every glad pulse, health 
and generous vigor throughout the moral frame. 
No system of government that does not somehow 
engage this master principle of loyalty in close alli¬ 
ance, can ever be best or safest; cannot even insure 
its own subsistence for a day. Now, upon the theory 
of the social contract, what warrant has the State 
for obedience, and what security for patriotism *? 
How can you be sure of inward order *? How be 
safe against outward violence *? 

It cannot warrant obedience. For who made thee 
a ruler or a judge over me*? The law, you answer. 
But what gives the law its validity and power*? 


15 


Strength'? Then, if I am stronger than my ruler, 
I may invade the capital, and usurp the sword 
or the robe. The majority of wills'? Then I may 
muster a larger rabble of wills and overpower the 
law, or I may scare those wills with revolvers, that 
they have no choice but silence. Then, where is 
the law'? Its majesty is a mockery, its word a 
sheer boast, its power that of the strongest. Brute 
force, after all. This will never do. Law must 
have an excellence beyond that of bone and muscle, 
or man’s more excellent nature will refuse it reve¬ 
rence. It must bear a stamp and signature of more 
dignity than his neighbor’s whim, or his pride will 
not bend before it. Its power must be superhuman, 
to control the human. Call it an abstraction; it is 
a power. I recognize a divinity in it. It seizes my 
spirit. It constrains my reverence. It holds me 
with all the power of conscience. I dare not be a 
rebel. 

If the theory of the social contract is thus ineffi¬ 
cacious in securing obedience, it is not less fruitless 
of patriotism. The very idea of a contract places 
the relation of citizens to each other and to the 
government, on the footing of a simple commercial 
transaction. 

The principles that govern those relations must, 
accordingly, be such as rule in the mart and on the 


16 


exchange, viz., convenience, expediency, profit, or, 
perchance, the mercantile conscience. Are they 
sufiicient for the tug and strain of great national 
emergencies, or even for the daily exigencies of 
good citizenship 1 Have we security for patriotism, 
for example, in the self-interest of the citizen, when 
his passions may run riot with his reason, and drag 
him into mad secession 1 “ Appeal, then, to his 

conscience,” says the theory. But remember that 
by the theory, government is only a bargain among 
equals. The conscience must be a mercantile con¬ 
science, and only that. 

I do not disparage the mercantile character, but 
speak the simple truth of nature and of the nature 
of things, when I say that a transaction which re¬ 
cognizes only the relation that subsists between 
equals, can never be so binding on the conscience 
as one which acknowledges, likewise, a duty to God. 
The obligation of man to his fellow-man in their 
own mutual concernments, cannot rise to the dignity 
and awfulness of divinity. Interest, danger, pride, 
poverty, may easily distort the moral sense, when it 
is not reinforced by the sanctions of religion, till 
conscience herself knows no principle higher than 
the truckster’s. 

However strongly, then, the social theory of go¬ 
vernment may enforce the duty of patriotism, as an 


17 


obligation between man and man, it utterly fails to 
impress the conscience with the sanction of religion. 
Patriotism can no longer answer its ancient descrip¬ 
tion, and fight for its altars and its hearths—for 
altars it has none. The social contract has no wor¬ 
ship ; no religion; no divinity in the State. It 
leaves that glorious attribute of man—his loyalty— 
with only one foot to stand upon—a lame and limp¬ 
ing virtue, fit neither to fight nor to stand resist- 
ingly, but only to fail and fall at the first trial. 

Now mark how the essential vices of the theory 
of the social contract are met and compensated by 
the theory of government propounded by the New 
Testament. “ The powers that be are ordained of 
Godand again, “ He is the minister of God to 
them for good.” The principle of that theory is, 
that civil government is a Divine institution, taking 
rank with the church and the family; endued with 
a sort of personality; armed with an authority bor¬ 
rowed directly from heaven, and supreme within its 
sphere for the conservation of the nation’s welfare. 
That sphere is denoted by certain essential land¬ 
marks, of which I know of no better description 
than is found in our Declaration of Independence— 
“ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the 
sacred rights of man. Civil government is God’s 

institute for conserving all these. While it is true 
2 


18 


to this noble mission, it claims, with Divine autho¬ 
rity, the homage of loyal and loving hearts; obe¬ 
dience for its support, patriotism for its vindication 
and defence. Only when government transcends 
those landmarks, and tramples those sacred rights of 
life, liberty, and the highest happiness of the go¬ 
verned, does it forfeit its divine dignity. Then its 
interference is tyranny, and these outraged rights of 
humanity are condensed into one sacred and im¬ 
pregnable right, divinely supreme above all others— 
the right of revolution. 

Rebellion is then justifiable against government 
when conformity would be a crime against God or 
man; and then the power that was only delegated 
is superseded by the right which is ultimate and 
essential. 

In this theory is to be found, I apprehend, the 
only true source of that authority which is indis¬ 
pensable to the security and perpetuity of the State. 
It addresses the noblest capacities of human nature, 
and bands them together in fealty and patriotism. 

It reinforces our civil obligations by the highest 
sanctions of conscience, and makes both government 
and citizenship religious. It is beautiful to witness 
how almost unconsciously this theory is sanctioned 
by our spiritual instincts. For even with our loose 
and democratic training it is almost impossible to 


19 


separate the mind from the idea of a certain Divine 
and personal authority in the State. To us the 
great embodiment and expression of civil authority 
is in the Constitution of the United States. Why 
do we speak of the Constitution with reverence'?— 
a thing of ink and parchment. Not because it is 
always wisest, perhaps. Many persons think it 
should be amended. Not because its framers were 
older men than we. The world was nearer its 
infancy then than now. Not because it was the 
collective voice of a generation, for that generation 
is far outnumbered by the present. Analyze your 
feelings, and you will find that you have uncon¬ 
sciously ascribed to the Constitution a sacredness 
higher than human—higher than earth-born. It is 
the utterance of the abstract nationality. It is the 
decree of that spiritual personality which, like a 
veiled Deity, sits behind the law and proclaims his 
own solemn and inviolable majesty. We listen, we 
reverence, we obey. 

And mark, again, how beautifully this religious 
theory of government embraces and adopts the sen¬ 
timent of patriotism. How may we interpret this 
inbegotten love of country, springing uncalled for 
in every man’s bosom, often noblest in woman, and 
filling even the child’s heart with romantic enthu¬ 
siasm ] It is an ennobling passion, wider and sub- 


20 


limer than domestic love, and only second in purity 
and fervor to the bonds of the church. What makes 
a patriot’s death seem as glorious as a martyr’s? 
What does he love when he loves his country? 
Nature and truth were made for each other, and 
affianced by God’s decree. Here is the living in¬ 
stinct. Where is its living object? Bright skies, 
green fields, a genial climate? Go ask the home¬ 
sick Swiss and the home-proud Laplander! 

Is it his fellow-countrymen he loves ? He never 
saw a thousandth part of the multitude. His regard 
for them can be only philanthropy. Is it family and 
friends to whom his burning patriotism gathers its 
focal heat? No; for we call such love by other 
names—parental, fraternal, filial. The domestic 
love is the most powerful antagonist of the patriotic. 
The fatherless, brotheiiess, childless man should be 
the readiest patriot. Is patriotism, then, sheer 
vanity, a thirsting for applause—mean selfishness 
hitherto mistaken for a virtue? Not so. Vanity 
is self-seeking—patriotism self-sacrificing. Vanity 
is defrauded by death. Patriotism is never gratified 
to the full till it can shed its blood. Vanity triumphs 
only in victory. Patriotism is most glorious in 
defeat. 

The object of patriotism! Find it in the spiritual 
impersonation of the State; the ideal embodiment 


21 


of authority standing forth as a Divine mother re¬ 
ceiving the tender and ennobling homage of her 
children. The patriot’s love to her is filial; he 
triumphs in her glory; he weeps for her misfortunes ; 
he burns at her disgrace; he defends her with his 
life, and when he dies he lays himself at her feet, 
looks up into her countenance, and smiling, with 
his last gasp, says, “ It is for thee,” “ Dulce et de¬ 
corum est pro patria mori.” There is a place in 
every man’s heart for this love, and to every man 
this love has a spiritual object, lifting him out of 
himself and filling him with an enthusiasm so pure 
that it is only the first grade this side of godliness. 

And now having discussed the bearing of this 
theory of government upon the citizen, let us in a 
few closing words consider its relation to the magis¬ 
trate. “ Ordained of God.” “ He beareth not the 
sword in vain.” August and impressive words they 
are.. The chief magistrate, as the conservator of 
the nation’s integrity and weal, has no personal 
option of duty; can have no personal fears, or fa¬ 
vors, or interests. All must be merged and lost in 
the one engrossing sense of duty to the divinity 
which he represents. It is his indispensable func¬ 
tion to defend the nation against aggression with 
stanch resistance, and to decapitate treason with 
the sword that has been ‘‘ bathed in Heaven.” If he 


22 


refuses, it is at his souFs peril. Again; if the ma¬ 
gistrate be so near to heaven, how pure should 
his motives be, how aloof from the tricks and cor¬ 
ruptions of politics! Sublimely high above all par¬ 
tisan influences, he should be emulous not of the 
reward and praise of men, but only of His, the 
Lord of lords, whose minister he is. 

As we have thus traced the line of antecedence 
and consequence by which our nation was led to 
adopt its peculiar form and theory of government, 
has it not appeared to you as furnishing an explana¬ 
tion, in part at least, of our present difficulties'? 

If, as the strict social theory maintains, the real 
authority of all government rests only on convention, 
then it instantly lapses by secession. If government 
be the mere creature of human wills, is it not of 
necessity inferior to its creators, and may not any 
number of wills withdraw their share of the crea¬ 
tive force, and stand aloof and repudiate the. gov¬ 
ernment '? 

Such we know’ to be the sentiments and practice 
of men and of communities among us; and it is the 
chaos which they threaten that we are met before 
God, to deplore and deprecate. 

But this is only the natural cause of our troubles. 
May there not be moral causes more potential 
stillIf civil government be a special institute of 


23 


God, may not the nation have provoked him by 
denying it'? If the authority of the State be a 
Divine endowment, then to ignore its divinity must 
be a sin. I speak not now of those moral delin¬ 
quencies which have been familiarly charged upon 
the practice and management of the government, 
corruptions, briberies, frauds, favoritisms, and other 
malversations of othce. 

But is it not conceivable that the blank in our 
Constitution, where God’s name should be, is the 
fearful sin, which he has not forgotten'? When the 
nation proclaiming its most deliberate decree, and 
declariog its most reflective convictions, set forth 
the Constitution as its elected theory and platform 
of government, and that theory Godless, was 
the nation’s God well pleased'? He has been pa¬ 
tient because he is Almighty. 

It may be that the red right arm has been 
restrained by his church’s prayers; that he has 
spared the irreligious government for the sake of 
the religious people. 

And this may be our hope and confldence even 
now, while the nation is trembling for her consist¬ 
ency and life. 

Pray then that the threatening mischief may be 
averted, and its sad cause so compensated, that 
having escaped the present peril, the nation shall 


24 


learn to mingle piety with its politics—our land 
shall become Emmanuel’s land, a mountain of holi¬ 
ness, and the habitation of righteousness—and then 
our Eepublic being even as the kingdom of God on 
earth, we may not fear to look up and pray, “ Let it 
be perpetual.” 


§4 IT 








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